My oldest daughter is newly teen-aged. My middle daughter is ten, and my youngest is four. This can make for an interesting day.
Yesterday, while Teen Daughter was struggling to make sense of something about percentages (and struggling loudly, so as to include all of us in her woes), and as Middle Daughter was explaining (to herself, out loud) that there should be four factors for this particular product, rather than three, Youngest Daughter had a question: “Mommy, can I get into the craft cupboard and get the glitter and the glue and make something fabulous?”
And here you have a snapshot of any given day in our homeschool. It’s a one-room schoolhouse, minus the prairie and the wood-burning stove. It’s the juggling act of catering to very different ages and very different needs. We’re pretty good pioneers, though. Every year (or sometimes, every day) brings a new and challenging situation and we must rise to the occasion and confront it with a true pioneer spirit.
When two kids need help with math skills, and the third needs help getting messy, what’s a good homeschooling mom to do? My four-year-old’s needs are just as real and just as important as are the educational needs of my older kids. But, her needs (and wants) don’t always have to be answered the way she wants them, at exactly the moment she wants. That’s just sound parenting, and it’s also sound homeschooling. The old cliché, “You can’t please all of the people all of the time” holds true for homeschooling moms. When two people are immersed in math, the third person might just have to wait for glitter.
Yesterday’s solution was to get Youngest Daughter started on what felt like a craft to her, but was an easy clean-up for me. The “stationary set” she got from a friend for Christmas was perfect. It included glittery-looking stickers, cards to decorate with markers and envelopes to lick (you must admit that anything that shimmers and involves spit is enough to make any four-year-old glow.) Later in the day, when my older girls headed off for some computer time, the glitter came out and my preschooler and I made something fabulous.
The trick in juggling such varying ages usually comes down to me. It’s not about glitter and math. It’s about my levels of patience and flexibility. My reactions often determine what kind of day it will be in our homeschool. There’s another old cliché that goes, “If Mommy’s not happy, nobody’s happy,” and it’s just as true for homeschooling mommies as for any other kind.